Wordless Wednesday

Ok, so we hit 8 months yesterday. I’m going to keep thinking that we will have little one home by Christmas 2007. I’m going to put my fingers in my ears and not listen to RQ or anyone else. I know China won’t let the wait get to 2 years. I just have a gut feeling about it. I believe the longest wait that has been in China’s history is 16 months.



8 months logged in and 10 months to go. 10 months you say? Yep, that’s what I’m hoping for at least. We’ll see……

Random Thoughts

Hmmm…yesterday sure was a pity party for me day!! I was cheered up by my CCAI Secret pal gift!! It is a wonderful book filled with pictures about China!! I just love it. J (who is going with us) is going to borrow it also. Thank you so much SP!! As usual, you rock!



On to my crafty projects. I’ve started the bear and have actually finished the body. It looks funny though, kind of lopsided. Maybe it will look better after I do the arms tonight. I also want to start the clown and I’ve found a project for the pig.



Talking about pigs, I’m seeing where people are saying this is the year of the golden pig. I’ve read where this only happens every 600 years. This legend says if a child is born in the year of the golden pig she will experience a prosperous and wealthy life. Some are saying that this is the year of the Fire Pig. In fact, there is more evidence that this is the year of the Fire Pig so that is what I’m going by. The pig is the last sign of the zodiac the pig represents “resignation” accepting human nature as it is – content to live and let live.



I got in the car this morning and one of my fav songs was on – Paradise by the Dashboard Lights by Meat Loaf.



Went to lunch today with some friends. Had a hamburger – there goes the diet!! Lots of stuff going down around work that I can’t write about. Suffice it to say that we don’t know where we’ll be a year from now. Ugh!!!!



Did I mention that I’m tired of waiting??!!



Check out this video – it is performed by 21 dancers who are all deaf. The video link below shows members of the Chinese Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe doing a beautiful dance, called the Thousan-Hand Guanyin. All of the 21 dancers are deaf, relying only on signals from trainers at the four corners of the stage. It's lead dancers is Tai Lihua, who has a BA from the Hubei Fine Arts Institute. The video was recorded in Beijing during the Spring Festival last year.








If you look over at the links you’ll see a picture with the words “Wordless”. I’ve decided to do Wordless Wednesdays (ww). Click on the picture and you can also sign up for ww. I think this will be fun and at least I’ll have to post each Wednesday!!




One more thing – I want to see our daughter’s face!!!!!!

What If's and If Only's

And soon it will be 8 months. I’m so discouraged. I try very hard to keep a bright outlook but as each month comes and the batches do not get any larger my outlook becomes dimmer. May of 2008 – that is over one full year away. I can’t even wrap my brain around that but that is what the current guesstimate says we are going to get our referral. By May of 2008 T will be graduating from high school and L will be a sophomore. We’ll have to update our homestudy and do the whole fingerprint process again. More money will have to go out. You are probably wondering what happens if the homestudy and 171H expire for the second time. That shouldn’t happen. (of course, who would’ve thought it would happen a FIRST time). Our 171H and homestudy does not have to be up to date when China reviews our dossier. It just has to be done before we travel to pick her up.



In my head I am having the “what if” and “if only” war. “What if” it isn’t meant for us to adopt? “What if” we went the SN route? “What if” China closes the doors to IA? “If only” we could have gotten our dossier quicker to China. “If only” Charlotte wasn’t so slow. “If only” Big T didn’t take a year to see that our family was missing something. If only…..if only…what if…what if…. Don’t you hate it when you start talking to yourself??!! Jeez!!



Ok – get this. People who got pregnant after we announced our adoption plans are now HAVING BABIES!!! I know….poor pitiful me!! I know, don’t even say it…keep yourself busy. Enjoy your time with the boys. Enjoy your sleep. Enjoy the upcoming summer. Blech!! I don’t WANT to do that! I want to hold our daughter!! I want to stroke her face! I want to hug and kiss her, to play with her, teach her and learn from her.

Fundraising

Well, this is going okay. I'm thinking of crocheting some dolls, bears, and maybe a cat or two and then selling them. Here are some pictures of what I can make (or try to make). I think I'll make a few and put them on my fundraising site - see what happens!

MRSA and the Next Day

I took T back to the doctors the next morning after he had 24 hours of antibiotics. The doctor took one look at his leg and sent him to the hospital. We got checked in and they started him on an IV for stronger antibiotics. A surgeon came in to look at it and said that he would need to cut out the infection. Oh great! So here we are in a small hospital room (T is over 6' tall!) in the pediatric wing which is on the same floor as the "crazy" people. We've been told that they think it is MRSA and that he will need surgery. We got up there around 9:30 and T has had nothing to eat or drink. At 5:00 the nurse comes in and says the surgery would be the next day - Ty just said "Please get me some food, I'm starving!".

Fast forward to after dinner. The nurse came back and started him on another antibiotic. About 15 minutes or so later T is itching his head like crazy. I ask him to stop and he says he can't. He even asked me to itch it. I turned on the light to look at him and called the nurse. The kid's face was swollen and red, his neck and chest was red, and the back of his neck hives started breaking out! Yep - that's right, he's allergic to that particular drug. DH came up to his room and spent the night with him so I went home.

The next morning he was taken down to surgery. T has a high tolerance for valuim so they decided to just put him under. He came back to the room sleeping but fine. They got all the infection out along with the dead flesh. The surgeon came up to the room that evening and said that he wanted T to stay in the hospital until Monday or Tuesday. Great. The kid has already missed too much school and now it's exams! We also got confirmation that it is MRSA. The surgeon left the wound open and packed it. He'll have a nice scar once it heals.

On Saturday they took him down to physical therapy. They unwrapped his leg and put it into a whirlpool. They they re-packed the wound and re-wrapped his leg. We spoke to the doctor and he said that T could probably come home on Saturday once they got the sensitivity test back. This test is used to see what drug the MRSA would be more sensitive to. They finally got the results back and sent him home with the correct oral antibiotics.

His leg looks gross!! I'd take a picture but my camera is at my bil's house.

Thanks Mom!

Thanks Mom

T came home after his wrestling match last night and told me his girlfriend doctored his leg for him. He didn’t wrestle because he is still getting his knee back in shape. I asked him to show me his leg and he took the bandage off. There was blood on it so I asked what happened. Appearantly he was bitten sometime last week and yesterday someone hit him with a chair on the same spot. His shin was red, swollen, and hot to the touch so I told my dh that we needed to take him to the doctors. Of course he poo’ed poo’ed it but took him anyways.

The doctor looked at his leg, ran a test, and said that he has a staph infection. He also said that it is a good thing we brought him in because he might not be with us if we had waited another 24 hours!! OMG!!! I don’t know if he has MSRA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRSA . That could be potentially dangerous. I did some research on the web about this and people have actually died from it. Jeez!!

Yep, that’s right folks. We have been logged in now for 7 months. 7 months of ups and downs. 7 months of rumors. 7 months of questions from people asking how the adoption is going. We went to my brother-in-laws last weekend to do our family Christmas get together and gift exchange. The first thing out of most people’s mouth was “how is the adoption going?” and “when are you going to China to get your daughter?” I know they mean well but when you tell them it will probably be another year they just ask more questions.

Are we at least half way there? No, I don’t think so. I think when we hit our 9th month we will be half way there. I think our wait will be 18 months long and we will get our referral next November. That seems so far away….




Christmas and New Year wrap Up:

Christmas has come and gone and we have started the new year. Going through the motions during Christmas was very difficult. I didn’t want to spoil it for the boys so I kept everything pretty much to myself. No one saw the tears or the far away gazes. I miss her so much it hurts. Will it ever go away??

For New Years we went to our friends D and J’s house. They have 2 daughters, one who is 16 and the other one is 5. We got over there around 8:30 or 9:00 and started to play dominos. When midnight came we went outside for some fireworks. That was it…nothing exciting. J asked why I wasn’t drinking. Shoot, I knew that if I drank I would become melancholy and bring everyone down so I just sipped my wine cooler. Trust me folks – she and her hubby drank enough for me!!

Remember what I wrote last year? Guess 2006 wasn’t the year. Will 2007 be the year? Yep, I think so!

What type of Yarn are you?

You are Shetland Wool. You are a traditional sort who can sometimes be a little on the harsh side. Though you look delicate you are tough as nails and prone to intricacies. Despite your acerbic ways you are widely respected and even revered.
Take this quiz!




snark....

Christmas Ornaments

Here are some pics of some of my fav ornaments. Our tree is a little bit smaller than we usually get this year but we were able to fit them all on!!

Having Fun with a Pink Furry Hat!!

We were watching D and he was playing around with T's hat. He was having a ball with it and I was able to grab a few pictures!!

On another night we gave him some mashed 'taters. He decided that we couldn't feed him unless it was by big T's finger or his own fingers. So cute!! While he was eating his big sister was making brownies and licking the bowl.

6 months and ACL update

We’ve passed our six month LID anniversary on November 30th. While that is nice milestone we don’t know how much longer the wait will be. Right now CCAA is taking about 2 months to match a month’s worth of referrals. There are 5 more months until our LID and CCAA is on September. So, December would refer the rest of September



If CCAA matches 2 weeks at a time is in the first column and then if CCAA matches a full month is in the second column.


















The current trend of referrals has us getting ours in February of 2008. All we can do is pray at this point. Pray that CCAA will speed referrals back up – or at least do more than 2 weeks each month. That would be a 23 month wait. 23 long months!! By then T will be in college and L will be 10th grade!!



Wow….23 months. You know what? That SUCKS!!! It really really SUCKS!!!!


Ok - T's ACL - it ended up being his kneecap.











Your kneecap should sit straight in the socket but both of his are off to the side. When he hurt it during wrestling he pulled his kneecap out of place and then it went back in. Four to six weeks of physical therapy should take care of it. He will have to wear a special brace on both knees for wrestling and baseball to protect them. Huh...this is genetics..sorry T but you got my bad knees!!!

Life

So much has happened since the last time I posted. On November 4th my mom passed away. Though she has had problems with her heart this was unexpected. I'm still trying to come to terms with the whole thing. I miss her terribly. She was only 68 years young. This might be selfish but I wanted little T to meet her, to know her. I hurt because this is not possible now. Mom was a wonderful women, full of life, mischief, laughter, giving, and love. This time of the year, Thanksgiving and especially Christmas was her favorite. This year will be hard.




My oldest son had his first wrestling tournament 2 weeks ago. He won his first match and got hurt on his second one. We took him to the doctors on Sunday and they referred him to an orthapedic doctor. When we got there the doctor pulled of 2 3/4 vials of blood off his knee and said it looks like he tore his ACL. He goes to another doctor on Monday in Greenville that specializes his sports injuries. Poor kid, wrestling is over this year for him and most likely he won't be playing baseball either.

5 Months Down....how Many to Go??

Yes, we are celebrating 5 months being logged in today with CCAA. Where do we stand with the wait? Who knows. Some are saying the wait will go out to 2 years, some are saying the wait will stabalize at 14 - 15 months and yet some are saying the wait will stabalize at 10 - 12 months.

We are hoping to see her beautiful face next June or July and travel in August or September. Only time will tell

Quote

I saw this on the RQ site. It's a great quote about patience.















“Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until
something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a conflict. Patience is not waiting passively until someone else does something. Patience asks us to live the moment to the fullest, to be completely present to the moment, to taste the here and now, to be where we are. When we are impatient, we try to get away from where
we are. We behave as if the real thing will happen tomorrow, later, and somewhere else. Let’s be patient and trust that the treasure we look for is hidden in the ground on which we stand.” –Henri J.M.Nouwen

Camping Part II

I got to thinking about T's visitors at the campground last weekend. I wonder if that is the day our daughter was born. It very well could be!! I got goose bumps when T was telling me about his visitors and he was so excited about it. Maybe...

Foto Challenge

Double Happiness has a new challenge - Any photo with a pumpkin. Here are some pictures I took this past weekend for the pumpkin carving contest. You can see the reaction of H when we try to get her to put her hand inside the pumpkin!! She wanted nothing to do with it!

Weekend Camping

We went camping last weekend and had a great time. We belong to a private campground that has places to go to up and down the east coast. The one nearest us closes for the winter and last weekend was it for them. Yes, it was cold but we kept warm by the fire! There were a ton of activites for everyone to do during the day including a hayride and a haunted house!! There were also a costume contest and pumpkin carving contest.

While we brought the kids to the hayride and haunted house my husband decided to stay and watch the fire. He said some people came into the site and started talking to him. They even went as far as going and sitting by the fire and putting their youngest one in D's stroller. The guy of the group was filling in for the DJ for the evening dance. The family had never been to this campground, was out exploring, and needed a rest. The catch to all this? They were from China! Big T told me about it when we got back and said he is now a believer of signs! He also said that if he ignored that one then God would probably come down here himself and bitch slap him!

Anyway, here are some pictures, enjoy!!

The Lion King

If you get the chance go see it!! What a remarkable show. The costumes were gorgeous, the singing beautiful, and the props were amazing. We weren't allowed to take pictures so these aren't mine. One of the guys I graduated from highschool with is still working as the assistant lightning director for the world wide tour of the Lion King. I was hoping he was here but no luck. I would have loved to talk to him and maybe get back stage.

We are going camping this weekend with our neighbors. We belong to a private campgound called Outdoor World. They have campgounds up and down the east coast. The one we go to shuts down for the winter and the last camping date is this weekend. They have trick-or-treating, a haunted house, hay rides, and the requisite DJ dance on Saturday night. It should be a ton of fun!!

Family FotoFun Friday Challenge #2

Donna over Double happiness is doing a weekly photo challege. I didn't participate in the first one but here's the second Challenge! I don't have photo shop but I really need to get it. All I did was blur out the faces.